1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system of categorizing health care utilization, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method of identifying health care utilization using a neural network processor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Inappropriate utilization of health care services in the United States wastes scarce financial and medical resources. One common cause of such inappropriate utilization occurs when patients seek treatment of one physical condition, when, in fact, their symptoms result from an obscured underlying etiology such as alcoholism or psychiatric illness. For instance, an alcoholic may continually seek treatment for physical ailments resulting from alcohol abuse, while the actual problem of alcoholism remains undiagnosed. Inappropriate utilization of medical resources under such circumstances is referred to herein as PATIENT DRIVEN CARE ("PDC").
In contrast, the appropriate utilization of health care and medical resources through treatment of ailments without obscured underlying causes is referred to herein as ILLNESS DRIVEN CARE ("IDC").
Systems have been proposed which utilize computers for classification of patients or which utilize expert systems for diagnosis purposes. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,122 to Fuller, et al. discloses the concept of using a computerized system for analyzing health care questionnaires. In addition U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,259 to Gallant discloses the use of a general purpose matrix-controlled expert system which uses a base of knowledge to make inferences from input information until an appropriate response can be deduced. However, these systems do not identify inappropriate utilization.